Sunday, October 09, 2011

I have been gathering materials for quite some time in order to make a Shipwreck. I did some trading and purchasing on Ravelry to get enough Skinny Bugga! in the colourway Eurota Purplewing. I spent a lot of time looking at beads, and before I was done had ordered 3 different sets.

The knitting began in May. It's a circular shawl, so it starts like this:

Once the centre three charts are knit, the knitter strings beads onto the yarn and knits a bajillion rounds, adding beads. The beads need to be strung on before you knit. This involves getting the right number of beads onto your yarn, and then sliding the beads down the strand as you progress through the skein. It's very fiddly.

I started knitting the beaded part on vacation this summer. The beads are supposed to be placed randomly. I had intended to bring a die to cast to determine where to place the beads, but I didn't. I found that I wasn't very good at generating satisfactorily random numbers, so I ran to the gift shop for a deck of cards. Cards 1-6 indicate the numbered stitch to add the bead. Cards 7-Q are assigned the numerical values 1-6 again. A King card indicates knit a few past 6 and add 2 beads.

The shawl is sitting in the basement and gets grabbed on a regular basis, but I'm only about 10 rounds into the process. (ETA--Did I mention there's 580 stitches per round?) There's a whole lot of beaded knitting remaining.

A week ago when I posted that I'd purchased acrylic yarn, I honestly believed I'd be posting the final product that night. The knitting did indeed go quickly, but I cast on 5 times before I got the size right. Yesterday the hat all came together and it's done.

The hat is fashioned after a hat worn by the character Jayne in the show Firefly. I mostly followed directions here, based on careful scrutiny of the show. I held the yarn doubled and used a size 11 needle.

I'll go back to wool, now, thanks!

Oh, and I bought a little Pom Pom Maker because my pompoms always look like crap. Such fun!!

About Me

I'm a Canadian librarian living in the U.S. I knit, sew, geocache, cook and entertain myself in other random ways. I have various homes on the web, this one happens to be mostly knitting, with a smattering of other domestic pursuits tossed in when needed.
Email me: KnitikaGC AT gmail DOT com